Tuesday, June 1, 2010

More than six months ago, I made four incredibly stupid entries in the contest to appear on The Colbert Report, all of which are still up at http://community.colbertnation.com/profile/michaeldare. The website provided a zip file of dozens of clips of Colbert that we were invited to edit ourselves into. I went nuts. The front page of the contest is still up at http://community.colbertnation.com/, where one of my videos remains featured, but with NO MENTION OF THE CONTEST. It's like it never happened. No winner has been announced and nobody from the site has appeared on The Colbert Report. It's like the whole thing was a cheap publicity stunt to get a bunch of free material posted to the Comedy Central Site with no intention of ever letting someone on the air. Maybe the moderators didn't really like any of them. Many were even worse than mine. I'm not saying I should have won, I'm saying WTF!? Pick someone else, I don't care, I need closure. I can't live forever with this pathetic dream that someday I'm going to be on The Colbert Report. Would I have to appear as the lunatic character I play in the videos or could I just be myself or, holy self-revelation, maybe there's no difference. Would it be okay to turn my appearance into performance art? Could I jump over the desk and try to strangle him and get taken away in a straightjacket? That would be cool. Right now, life is like a production of Waiting for Godot with Stephen Colbert as Godot.

Idea #2: We start out having a normal conversation which leads to something like this...

SC: How do you like New York?

MD: A lot of people on the streets asking for money.

SC: Why don't you just ignore them like I do?

MD: I wish I could. I mean when YOU ignore a beggar, it's because you think they should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and they'll probably just spend it on booze, but when I ignore a beggar, it's because I don't have any money to give them.

SC: Good. YOU'D probably spend it on booze.

MD: Let me ask you something, Stephen. How much money do you have in your pocket right now?

SC: I don't know, why?

MD: Because I'd like you to give it to me so I can give it to beggars when I leave the studio.

SC: I don't understand. What do I get out of it?

MD: Satisfaction at having helped somebody who needs it?

SC: BLANK STARE

MD: Okay, look, you can film me giving the money away. That way you can use the footage to show how benevolent you are without ever having contact with an actual homeless person.

SC: So I would look good to liberal dupes in my audience and all it would cost me is the money in my wallet?

MD: You got it.

Stephen hands me 20 five dollar bills.

EXT. COMEDY CENTRAL

I give a five dollar bill to the first homeless person I see.

MD: You see, Stephen, that really felt good.

The homeless person puts a knife to my throat. I give them all the money.

MD: Well, that didn't take as long as I thought it would.

THE END

My ludicrous entries in the "Appear on The Colbert Report by Cutting Yourself into our Footage Contest"